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Greenland is the setting for an important section of book three in our international thriller series The Orphan Trilogy. There’s a series of life-and-death action sequences in this northern outpost of Denmark as Nine, our hero, attempts to find his kidnapped son who he fears is being experimented on at a secret research facility.

We initially selected the enigmatic, mostly inhospitable and largely ice-covered landmass which, for some unknown reason, is called Greenland. It seemed an ideal place for the Splinter Civilization to house secret technologies and conduct medical experimentation on children – if indeed such a civilization exists. However, in the course of researching the icy subcontinent we were pleasantly surprised to discover a wide variety of unusual and unexplained events have occurred there throughout its colorful history. Events that have fueled many a conspiracy theory…

Re-evaluating what he knew about the base, the former operative was aware it was home to the 21st Space Wing’s global network of sensors that provided space surveillance and missile warning to the Air Force Space Command and the North American Aerospace Defence Command. It also served as a ballistic missile early warning site and since 2002 had been home to the 821st Air Base Group. –The Orphan Uprising

Thulegate

In The Orphan Uprising, Nine arrives in disguise at Thule Air Base, the US Air Force’s northernmost base located as it is above the Arctic Circle in Greenland’s northwest, in search of his abducted son.

Home to the 21st Space Wing’s space surveillance and missile warning sensors, the Air Base has attracted its share of controversy – as has Thule itself with conspiracy theories dating back to ancient times.

Thule Air Base (above) in summer and (below) in winter.

The location’s name itself is shrouded in mystery. Various interpretations of Thule have confused it with other northern destinations including Iceland and Scandinavia, and in medieval times Thule was associated with distant places beyond the known world. So it’s ripe for conspiracy theories, mired as it is in ancient mythology.

Situated less than 1000 miles from the North Pole, Thule’s a magnet for you know who. (Our old mates the Tinfoil Hatters)! However, once in a blue moon, the Tinfoil Hat Network’s stalwarts promote some way-out conspiracy theory that turns out to be true; and Thule’s the scene of Thulegate, one of their most treasured conspiracies. Treasured because it miraculously ended up being proven true, also proving the old adage that if you take enough wild stabs in the dark, occasionally you’ll get lucky!

Tinfoil Hatters now rightfully refer to Thulegate as conspiracy fact. Yet still, sadly for them, few buy in to any of their other theories, including the Moon being manmade, the ruling elite are all reptiles, that germs do not exist, blah, blah, blah.

Thulegate relates to the documented January 1968 crash of an American B-52 nuclear bomber on the ice sheet near the Thule Air Base. Apparently, the bomber was carrying four nuclear warheads, which the Pentagon maintained were destroyed in the crash. However, a Daily Mail report (updated on November 11, 2008 in its Mail Online site) debunks this, confirming what conspiracy theorists had speculated all along – that one or more of the warheads hadn’t been destroyed.

The American B52 bomber and its nuclear arsenal…before the crash.

Excerpts from the Daily Mail report follow:

“Greenland is a self-governing province of Denmark, but the carrying of nuclear weapons over Danish territory was kept secret, according to the BBC investigation…One of the missions went wrong and a bomber crashed into the ice a few miles from the air base.

“A declassified US government video, obtained by the BBC, documents the clear-up and gives some idea of the scale of the operation.

“The Pentagon had maintained that all four weapons had been ‘destroyed’, but declassified documents obtained…reveal investigators realized only three of the weapons could be accounted for.”

The report continues, “The underwater search (for the missing weapon) was beset by technical problems…Eventually the search was abandoned.

“A nuclear scientist has told the Daily Mail: ‘We really don’t know what has happened to this bomb’.”

According to the ApacheClips.com military media site, “The incident caused controversy at the time and in the years since. It highlighted the risks Thule Air Base posed to Greenlanders from nuclear accidents and potential superpower conflicts.”

The ApacheClips.com article continues: “The accident…signaled the immediate end of the airborne alert program, which had become untenable because of the political and operational risks involved.

“Scott Sagan, a political science academic and writer, postulated that if the aircraft had crashed into Thule Air Base, the missile early warning system and the redundant warning aircraft would have been knocked out simultaneously, potentially leading NORAD to conclude incorrectly that a nuclear attack had started.”

So the B-52 incident turned out to be another good example of something that started out as a conspiracy theory and ended up as fact.

When a B-52 nuclear bomber crashed and burned on the ice near Thule Air Base in 1968, the Pentagon classified all documents relating to the crash. Since then, media reports on America’s northernmost Air Force base had been unaccountably few and far between.–The Orphan Uprising

Project Iceworm

Many independent investigators believe Thulegate was the tip of the iceberg – please excuse the pun, but we couldn’t resist – in a large-scale Cold War nuclear program the US Military was conducting beneath Greenland’s surface.

Project Iceworm construction underway.

The ambitious program, which was apparently managed by the US Army, went by the codename Project Iceworm and involved the construction of a series of nuclear missile launch sites beneath the Greenland ice sheet and conveniently within striking distance of the Soviet Union.

These top-secret sites were constructed under the ice so that the Danish Government would remain unaware of them as America did not have permission to build nuclear missile sites in Greenland.

As covered in chapter 19, the global elite have numerous underground bases – some of them confirmed despite being off-limits to non-military personnel or to anyone beneath the highest levels of government. That confirmation has usually come via reluctant acknowledgement from the Military Industrial Complex, persistent investigative reporting by a handful of brave journalists or, last but certainly not least, publication of declassified documents.

This accounts for those clandestine subterranean bases we now know of. However, there are persistent rumors that hundreds more such secret underground facilities exist around the world.

Many conspiracy theorists believe the US Army had, or still has, several underground cities – yes cities – beneath the Greenland ice sheet where all manner of secret technologies are being developed and maintained. If there is a Splinter Civilization that has more advanced technologies than official science is aware of then the icy, inhospitable Danish-governed country with a population of less than 60,000 people would seem to the best place this side of the Moon for safekeeping of such technologies.

One of those underground sites whose existence has been confirmed is a former US Army facility in Greenland known as Camp Century, which was part of Project Iceworm and was also previously just a conspiracy theory. (It’s about here our Tinfoil Hat readers start cheering wildly)! The Camp Century site beneath the Greenland ice sheet was selected by US Army engineers in May, 1959. Construction began in 1960 and it was soon a fully-fledged subterranean city that ran entirely on nuclear power.

Constructing the reactor building at Camp Century.

Camp Century has long been declassified and is now an Arctic research facility. The US Army’s activities there were officially abandoned in 1966, reportedly due to the unstable conditions that existed beneath the ice. However, given the B-52 incident occurred only two years later, in 1968, a skeptic could be forgiven for linking it with Project Iceworm and also for wondering whether the project was actually axed.

Layout of Camp Century.

On arriving at Thule Air Base via Air Greenland and passing through the various US Air Force security checks, Nine’s first port of call was his guest house in the tiny settlement of Thule. Then, after checking in and taking delivery of a rental car, his next port of call, quite literally, was the nearby Port of Thule. Located as it was above the Arctic Circle, it was the world’s northernmost deep water port. And, like all of Greenland’s west coast ports and settlements, it was also ice-free in summer, which suited Nine just fine for what he was planning. –The Orphan Uprising

Continuing with the Cold War theme, in an article headed US Army’s top secret Arctic city under the ice, Curezon.org claims, “It eventually came out that the ultimate objective of Camp Century was of placing medium-range missiles under the ice – close enough to Moscow to strike targets within the Soviet Union.”

Curezon also mentions a now declassified US Army film showing “the nuclear-powered construction process of Camp Century, beneath the ice of central Greenland”.

The article continues: “Details of the missile base project were classified for decades, first coming to light in January 1997, when the Danish Foreign Policy Institute (DUPI) was asked by the Danish Parliament to research the history of nuclear weapons in Greenland during the Thulegate scandal.

“A report confirmed that the U.S. stockpiled nuclear weapons in Greenland until 1965, contradicting assurances by Danish foreign minister Niels Helveg Petersen that the weapons were in Greenland’s airspace, but never on the ground. The DUPI report also revealed details of Project Iceworm, a hitherto secret United States Army plan to store up to 600 nuclear missiles under the Greenland ice cap…

“Danish workers involved in the clean-up operation claimed long-term health problems resulting from their exposure to the radiation.”

Incidentally, the declassified US army film referred to in the article is freely available to watch online, having been uploaded to various video sites.

In the comments section beneath one such website that posted video footage of Camp Century, one viewer wrote, “The machinery and the whole project makes me think of the Thunderbird animations.”

Who knows, maybe the underground facilities in the popular British science fiction TV series Thunderbirds were inspired by Camp Century or other similar confirmed or rumored subterranean bases of the global elite.

It’s unlikely any of us will ever know how far the Splinter Civilization’s rabbit holes extend beneath our feet. And whenever we see sprawling underground cities in sci-fi movies and television episodes, or read about them in novels, most of us still think, This plot sounds far-fetched or The scientific concepts are ridiculous. Right?

Why on earth Omega had chosen Thule as the location for one of its secret medical labs, Nine could only guess. He assumed its isolation was one reason. No doubt the security afforded by the Air Force base was another. –The Orphan Uprising

Scan of 1963 cover from Camp Century.

The Thule Society

One of the oldest conspiracy theories relating to the name Thule dates back to The Oera Linda Book, a 19th Century manuscript written in Old Frisian and purported to have been compiled as long ago as AD 803. After being translated into German in the 1930’s, leading Nazi Party member Heinrich Himmler latched onto the book because of its apparent references to the origins of the Aryan race.

The Oera Linda Book…a favorite of Heinrich Himmler.

Infamous German occultist group the Thule Society, which was later absorbed into Hitler’s National Socialist German Workers Party, also accepted the book’s contents as absolute fact. The Thule Society’s followers believed in an ancient landmass known as Hyperborea, which they said was near the North Pole and was exactly where modern Greenland is. These Nazi mystics identified a place called Ultima Thule as the capital of this mythological and Atlantis-like continent of the Prehistoric World.

The translation of The Oera Linda Book has since been branded a hoax. Nevertheless, the book’s contents continue to be a subject for speculation.

The blog site TIA MYSOA (This Is Africa – My Simple Online Abode) reminds followers The Oera Linda Book became known as Himmler’s Bible and was also dubbed the Nordic Bible. It states: “Hoax or no hoax, this book articulates the first known example of the concept of root races, and I was quite surprised to read how accurate this old manuscript described a black maiden…by the name of Lyda…The description of the three earliest races, Lyda (black), Finda (yellow) and Frya (white) are provided in a section of the manuscript…”

Warning: If you are a member of the Tinfoil Hat Network, we strongly suggest you check that your hat is firmly attached to your head about now…

Often associated with the Thule Society is the Vril Society, another German occultist group said to comprise an alien super race known as Vril-ya whose intention was, or is, to join forces with superior beings they believe reside below ground on planet Earth. Believers insist the end goal for the Vril-ya and their subterranean allies is to rule the planet’s surface one day.

Meanwhile, the Tinfoil Hatters would have us believe the Vril Society developed Vril-powered spacecraft that the Germans used to explore space and to transport fleeing Nazis to the Moon and beyond.

According to the SabotageTimes.com site, “People fully bought into this work of fiction as being gospel truth… They met in secret and reportedly performed bizarre séance-like rituals in a bid to awaken the Vril people and gain control of their powerful elixirs, all in a bid to help them take over the world.”

The SabotageTimes report continues, “Although farfetched, when the war ended hundreds of Nazi blueprints were found by the allies, some actually detailed how to build propulsion aircrafts shaped like flying saucers.”

The report concludes, “Captured Nazi turned American scientist Wernher von Braun said when asked about how the Nazis became so advanced: ‘We had help from them’ and pointed upwards.”

If the quote is accurate, it’s not to be sneezed at. Don’t forget von Braun is the Father of Rocket Science referred to in chapter 12 – the same gentleman America awarded the National Medal of Science to in 1975.

It just goes to show that in amongst the flood of extravagant claims made by hardcore conspiracy theorists little gems can be found that at the very least warrant further thought if not further investigation.

Nine was also aware of the strange events said to have occurred at or near Thule over the years. Conspiracy theories abounded. In the early Twentieth Century, the tiny settlement inspired the underground Nazi occult organization known as the Thule Society. Its membershipwas rumored to include Adolf Hitler and numerous other Nazi leaders. –The Orphan Uprising

Korean War veterans experimented on?

In our research of various theories concerning Greenland, we came across one conspiracy author who claimed that in the early 1950’s American soldierswounded during the Korean War were secretly hospitalized in undisclosed bases in Greenland. According to the author, this was because the US Government considered its citizens weren’t ready to see battle casualties so soon after WW2.

The same author also asserts those veterans were experimented on, resulting in the deaths of some.

However, we’ve searched far and wide and can find no credible sources confirming, or even suggesting, that wounded Korean War vets were taken to Greenland instead of being repatriated (to the US). So it’s entirely possible this theory could come under the category of a desperate conspiracy author running out of ideas and fabricating shocking theories just to keep selling books.

On the other hand, who knows? Stranger and darker things have happened in the history of governments, and that includes the US Government. If it is true it wouldn’t be the first time American soldiers, and indeed soldiers of many other nations, have been experimented on without their consent.

“Before anyone passes judgment, may I remind you, we are in the Arctic.” –Fox Mulder (played by David Duchovny) in Season 1, Episode 7 of The X-Files.

Alien artifacts in the ice

The first season of The X-Files television series features an episode called Ice, which is set in the Arctic. Delta Air Park, in Vancouver, Canada, was selected by location scouts as the venue for filming because its flat and tundra-like terrain resembles the Arctic environment. At least it does through the lens of a camera.

An impressive 10 million American viewers watched the episode when it first aired in November, 1993. The high-rating, well-reviewed episode has the series’ leads David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson as FBI Agents Fox Mulder and Dana Scully, investigating the mysterious deaths of research scientists in the Arctic. The pair soon discover evidence of extraterrestrial, parasitic organisms that take over their hosts and cause those infected to commit extremely violent acts.

A true story, of sorts, in Greenland was reportedly the inspiration for the episode’s writers Glen Morgan and James Wong who conjured up the plot in association with the series’ creator Chris Carter. Morgan said a Science News article about scientists in “Greenland who dug something 250,000 years old out of the ice” gave him the idea.

Of course, if anything like that TV episode actually occurred and alien origins were discovered beneath Greenland’s ice sheet, the powers that be are not saying.

Various similarly-themed conspiracy theories reference abandoned ET civilizations discovered in Greenland by the global elite. Warning: more puns ahead… However, all these theories have grown cold, or are completely frozen, due to a total lack of evidence.

A hollow conspiracy theory

We doubt there are any gems to be found in the following theory, though it has a surprisingly high number of adherents. It was drawn to our attention by The Atlantean Conspiracy website, which refers to “that mother of all conspiracy theories – the Hollow Earth Theory”.

A February 2013 article on the site refers to “various testimonies” of the likes of “Admiral Byrd’s trips to the poles” and other explorers’ accounts of the land beyond the poles as “evidence pointing towards a Hollow Earth theory”.

The article states: “Nowadays only government-approved teams are allowed anywhere near the poles, but historically almost every explorer who has traveled to the poles has recorded that as you get closer, it gets warmer, the snow and ice disappear, and greenery and wild-life reappear. Even modern-day explorers continue finding driftwood, pollen, animals, and insects the closer they get to the poles.

“In Greenland animals should migrate south for the winter, but in fact they all migrate north, and northern winds in Greenland are actually warmer than Southern winds during winter. In Northern Russia there are constantly large animal bones and driftwood coming ashore from the North as well. The poles are no-fly zones and compasses start going haywire as soon as explorers sail/fly near them.

“During earthquakes the Earth behaves much more like a hollow body than a solid one, ringing like a bell with after-shocks spreading out like ripples in a pond. This behavior is indicative of a Hollow Earth and something which plate tectonics theory falls short of adequately explaining.”

The article invites readers to “view some of the evidence” in the videos it provides links to.

The idea of an alien civilization living inside the earth is a favorite of the Tinfoil Hat Network. Nazi mystics were also believers in the theory, and Lord Edward Bulwer-Lytton’s 1871 novel The Coming Race was said to be Adolf Hitler’s favorite book. The early science fiction story describes a mysterious free energy source called Vril and also describes in great detail the life of inhabitants living in the so-called Hollow Earth.

These days, given science has progressed and we now know so much more about the planet’s properties and nature, Hollow Earth believers are held in much the same regard as Flat Earth subscribers.

#

We’ve only scratched the surface of conspiracy theories involving Greenland. Many of them get even zanier than the ones covered in this chapter.

Other Greenland conspiracy theories presented as fact by the Tinfoil Hat Network include: the landmass being the real Atlantis; factories near the North pole with three-foot tall alien workers who manufacture human sweat which nourishes them; Adolf Hitler being alive and well and living in a Nazi-populated city beneath Greenland’s ice sheet; and Greenland’s flag being a secret Illuminati symbol.